THE 

PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

'  By 

Pastor  C.  H.  Brunner 


u.  G.  P.  Co., 

Box  398,  CLEVELAND,  OHIO. 

/ 


A 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Columbia  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/presentoutlookOObrun 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

This  is  the  day  of  man.  For  many  thou¬ 
sands  of  years  the  world  has  been  groaning 
and  suffering  under  the  rule,  or  rather  the 
misrule  of  man.  God  in  love  and  pity  sent 
His  own  Son  to  give  better  conditions  to 
man.  But  when  He  came  the  whole  world 
arose  in  rebellion  against  Him  and  crucified 
Him.  Of  this  all  the  world  has  become 
guilty  before  God,  for  it  was  written  in  He¬ 
brew,  Greek  and  Latin,  “Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
King  of  the  Jews’’  (Rom.  3:19;  John  19:19, 
20).  The  religious  world,  the  intellectual  or 
educational  world,  and  the  political  world, 
all  agreed  to  cry  “Away  with  Him.” 

Therefore  the  world  has  for  two  thousand 
years  more  been  under  the  rulership  of  man. 
Concerning  these  rulers  we  are  told  first^  that 
the  world-rulers  of  this  darkness  are  in  an¬ 
tagonism  and  conflict  against  the  Spirit- 
filled  child  of  God  (Eph.  6:12) ;  and  second, 
that  the  religious  rulers  through  ignorance 
“killed  the  Prince  of  Life,”  although  they 
heard  the  prophets  read  every  Sabbath  Day 
(Acts  3:15,17;  13:27,-28). 

Therefore  a  Christless  Christendom  as  well 
as  a  Christless  world  have  demonstrated 
their  hostility  toward  the  Son  of  God  before 
the  eyes  of  heaven  and  earth  in  the  rejection 
of  Him  as  their  King. 

3 


Well  what  do  we  have  now,  and  what  are 
the  conditions  around  us  at  the  present  time? 
Let  men  who  speak  not  to  a  few,  but  to 
whom  the  world  turns  for  counsel,  speak. 

A  LIFELESS  RELIGION 

An  English  writer  of  world-wide  fame, 
dealing' with  the  effects  of  war  on  religion, 
says  in  the  Expository  Times:  “The  war 
has  been  a  disappointment.  Before  it  be¬ 
gan  there  had  been  for  sonae  time  a  depres¬ 
sion  in  religion.  Clmrch-going  was  falling 
off.  Meetings  for  prayer  had  often  been 
abandoned.  When  the  war  began  we  be¬ 
lieved  that  all  that  would  be  changed.  We 
had  thought  that  men  would  go  to  church  in 
order  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
calamity.  *  *  It  has  all  been  a  disappoint¬ 
ment.  After  two  and  a  half  years  of  war 
and  unparalleled  suffering,  religion  in  the 
land  is  as  lifeless  as  ever.”  Is  not  this  a 
dark,  gloomy,  discouraging  outlook? 

A  GODLESS  MESSAGE 

This  statement  is  equally  true  and  no 
doubt  accounts  for  the  former.  A  Ger¬ 
man  minister  has  stated  lately  that  before 
the  war  he  had  tried  to  find  out  how  many  of 
Germany’s  ministers  believed  in  the  literal 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
and  could  not  find  three !  An  English  min¬ 
ister  makes  this  statement:  “Say  what  you 
like,  the  Gosjoel  is  not  preached  in  England. 
I  have  the  best  of  all  reasons  for  knowing. 
I  have  spent  six  months  listening  to  preach- 

4 


ors  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and,  as 
God  is  luy  Avituess,  I  did  not  hear  a  sermon 
in  any  church  that  was  even  designed  to  lead 
a  sinner  to  the  Saviour !” 

What  do  we  conclude  from  tins'?  Results 
will  tell;  the  fruit  will  show  the  planting.  A 
message  Avithout  the  Gospel  leads  to  a  mem¬ 
bership  Avithout  conA^ersion,  and  produces 
an  organized  religion  Avithout  life.  Is  not 
this  Laodiceanism?  Is  not  this  the  condition 
of  Christendom  to-day?  Has  not  this  brought 
forth  the  lukewarm  conditions  of  the  present 
day,  nauseating  and  sickening  to  God,  ready 
to  be  spued  out? 

What  is  to  be  done?  A  certain  writer 
says,  “To  reform,  revive,  unite  or  improve 
present-day  conditions  is  futile.  Our  duty 
is  to  examine  ourselves  and  turn  in  true¬ 
hearted  ‘first  love’  to  the  old  Gospel  and  the 
‘hot’  fervor  of  olden  days.” 

A  HOPELESS  OUTLOOK 

Well  what  do  the  great  men  of  the  Avorld 
say  who  have  the  reins  of  government  in 
their  hands,  such  who  are  standing  in  the 
place  and  position  that  is  coveted  and 
aimed  at  by  so  many?  This  is  man’s  day. 
These  men  have  access  to  all  the  resources  of 
the  world  to  make  their  schemes  and  plans 
valid.  They  have  the  history  of  nations  be¬ 
fore  them.  They  know  the  points  of  strength 
and  Aveakness  of  every  form  of  government 
from  the  days  of  Nimrod  who  founded  the 
first  kingdom,  down  to  the  multiplied  forms 

5 


of  government  existing  amofig  all  the  na¬ 
tions  of  the  earth  to-day.  They  know  the 
causes  leading  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  dynas¬ 
ties  and  nations  of  all  history.  Why  should 
they  not  be  well  able  to  wisely  guide  the  af¬ 
fairs  of  state  of  all  nations  to  the  highest 
state  of  peace,  prosperity,  contentment  and 
happiness  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  this 
globe?  Why  should  not  six  thousand  years 
of  experience,  the  gist  of  which  these  men 
have  in  their  minds,  bring  forth  all  the  con¬ 
ditions  for  the  making  of  a  paradise  of  this 
world?  The  world  looks  for  this. 

But  what  do  we  see?  The  illustrated  de¬ 
scriptions  of  the  awful  scenes  in  war-torn 
suffering,  bleeding,  dying  Europe  give  us, 
we  fear,  only  a  small  portion  of  the  awful 
truth ! 

The  Hon.  Lloyd-George,  Premier  of  Great 
Britain,  speaking  at  an  American  luncheon 
in  London  on  April  12th  said:  “I  can  see 
peace  coming  now — not  a  peace  which  would 
be  a  beginning  of  war,  not  a  peace  which 
would  be  an  endless  preparation  for  strife 
and  bloodshed,  but  a  real  peace.  The  world 
is  an  old  world,  and  it  has  never  had  real 
peace.  It  has  been  rocking,  swaying  like 
an  ocean,  and  Europe — poor  Europe — it  has 
always  lived  under  the  menace  of  the  sword. 
*  *  To-day  we  are  waging  the  most  devastat¬ 
ing  war  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  To¬ 
morrow — not  perhaps  a  distant  to-morrow — 
war  may  be  abolished  for  ever  from  the 
category  of  human  crimes.” 

6 


This  is  the  vision  of  man.  It  looks  much 
like  the  golden  image  in  the  plain  of  Dura 
(Dan.  3).  Such  a  speech  sounds  well  at  a 
banquet,  but  the  student  of  God's  Word  sees 
things  in  quite  a  different  light.  There  can 
be  no  peace  while  the  Prince  of  Peace  is 
in  exile  and  a  usurper  is  on  the  throne.  If 
six  millenniums  of  government  of  or  by 
man  have  developed  ^ffhe  most  devastating 
Avar  that  the  Avorld  has  ever  seen,"  if  this  is 
the  climax  of  civilization,  then  the  picture 
looks  dark  and  the  outlook  is  gloomy  indeed ! 

Tlie  cry  of  the  world  may  be  “Eureka!" 
but  they  admit  that  they  have  not  yet  found 
the  solution  to  meet  the  world's  greatest 
need. 

When  a  person  takes  sides  with  the  dis¬ 
couraging  conditions  as  they  exist,  he  is 
called  a  “pessimist,"  one  who  always  looks 
on  the  dark  side  of  things.  Well,  the  Bible 
shoAvs  us  two  sides,  one  is  exceedingly  bright 
and  encouraging,  while  the  other  is  extreme¬ 
ly  dark,  gloomy  and  discouraging. 

Hopeless  is  the  outlook  when  we  think  of 
nations,  governments,  proposals,  treaties,  in 
the  past,  so  in  the  future,  all  a  failure! 
When  the  solemn,  oath-bound  treaties  of  na¬ 
tions  are  regarded  as  “scraps  of  paper;" 
Avhen  the  tramp  of  soldiers,  the  beating  of 
drums,  the  bugle  call,  the  roar  of  cannon  is 
heard  among  the  foremost,  most  enlightened 
nations  of  the  earth;  when  there  is  fighting 
on  land,  under  ground,  on  the  sea,  under  the 
sea,  and  in  the  air;  when  the  indications 


from  the  Scriptures  regard  all  these  troub¬ 
les  simply  as  “the  beginning  of  sorrows’’ 
l^reparatory  to  the  coming  of  the  “great  trib¬ 
ulation,”  could  the  outlook  be  more  gloomy? 

But  HOPEFUL  is  the  outlook  as  we  look  up, 
knowing  that  for  us  our  “redemption  draw- 
eth  nigh,”  “The  King  Eternal”  or  “The 
King  of  the  Ages”  (I  Tim.  1:17,  R.  V., 
marg. )  will  soon  be  here  and  destroy  the 
“man  of  sin,”  the  “super-man,”  put  an  end  to 
all  human  authority  and  misrule  and  relieve 
the  groaning  creation.  Under  His  beneficent 
sway  “Nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against 
nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any 
more”  (Is.  2:4).  Then,  and  not  before 
then,  shall  they  “beat  their  swords  into  plow¬ 
shares  and  their  spears  into  pruning  hooks.” 
Then  shall  be  brought  to  pass  the  words  of 
the  prophet,  “The  earth  shall  be  full  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover 
the  sea”  (Is,  11:9;  Hab.  2:14).  The  Jews 
Avho  have  been  robbed,  plundered,  perse¬ 
cuted,  killed  ever  since  the  day  they  cruci¬ 
fied  their  Lord,  shall  then  “return  and  shall 
be  in  rest,  and  be  quiet,  and  none  shall  make 
them  afraid”  (Jer.  30:10;  46:27).  Then 
shall  be  fulfilled  what  Isaiah  says,  “The 
whole  earth  is  at  rest,  and  is  quiet;  they 
break  forth  in  singing”  (Is.  14‘:7).  Lord, 
hasten  that  day! 


8 


